


i want you to straighten out my tomorrow

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesia, Arachnophobia, Archivist Jonathan Sims, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Canon Asexual Character, Eventual Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gen, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, POV Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Scars, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Sex-Repulsed Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: The last thing Jon remembers is working into the night in the Archives in early 2016. Now he’s in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with Martin Blackwood as his only companion. Obviously Jon’s missed something along the way here...
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 109
Kudos: 356





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [beloved of jon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234983) by [gruhukens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gruhukens/pseuds/gruhukens). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: In addition to the memory loss mentioned in the tags, this first chapter in particular briefly mentions the possibility of dubcon sex, specifically involving drugging and/or alcohol, though such a thing does not and will not actually occur within this fic.

The first thing Jon noticed when he woke up was how soft the surface he was laying on was. The last thing he remembered was wrapping up some research on the Moira Kelly case while working at his desk, so if he’d conked out from lack of sleep, as seemed the most logical conclusion given that he was clearly waking up despite not remembering having fallen asleep in the first place, he should have still been at his desk, which he knew from experience to be a hard and uncomfortable sleeping surface, but obviously that wasn’t the case.

Jon wondered, briefly, if Martin--or somebody else, perhaps, but it seemed like the sort of thing that Martin specifically would do--had noticed that he’d fallen asleep at his desk and brought him to the break room couch, which would explain how he’d ended up laying horizontally on a surface significantly softer than his desk, but no, that wasn’t right either. The light in the area around him was dim as he opened his eyes, but even without seeing his surroundings Jon could tell that this wasn’t the break room couch, with its lumpy cushions and that one broken spring that seemed to always be in the most inconvenient position possible.

No, he was in a bed, a proper bed at that, with a mattress that was only slightly too firm for his tastes and half-tucked sheets covering it, the sheets thin but clearly there as he idly ran his hand up and down the surface, and a thick, warm blanket on top of him, slightly scratchy but still soft to the touch. The blanket wasn’t a familiar one, and the mattress and sheets didn’t ring any bells either, so clearly it wasn’t _his_ bed.

How the hell had he gone from working in the Archives to sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his own?

Jon pushed the blanket off of him and sat up, shaking his head as though doing so would help clear his mind enough to make any of this make sense, and only then did he see the lump on the other side of the bed that was too big to be anything other than another person.

As the lump that must be a person shifted positions slightly, Jon considered the implications of this, and his stomach sank. It didn’t make sense, not based on burning the midnight oil in the Archives being the last thing he could remember, but despite appearances, Jon was not entirely unaware of pop culture and media tropes, and he knew from that if from nothing else what waking up in somebody else’s bed generally meant.

The thought of it made Jon want to gargle a bottle of mouthwash and shower for hours just to feel clean again.

He knew those impulses weren’t entirely logical, but he had swung his feet onto the side of the bed, determined to find the nearest bathroom so he could at least wash his hands or splash water onto his face or, or do _something_ , anything, when he heard a voice calling out from behind him.

“Jon?”

The voice sounded familiar, but Jon couldn’t quite place it, though he did catch a note of confusion or care or perhaps both in the speaker’s tone, something that didn’t quite fit the mental picture he’d started to develop for how the night must have unfolded past what he could remember.

Jon didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to look the other occupant of this bed in the eye; right now, all he wanted to do was get his feet firmly planted on the ground.

It took a moment of trial and error, given that he still couldn’t see the room around him clearly, but soon enough Jon’s feet went from hovering above the bed to gently brushing the floor to pressed against a smooth cold surface, with him preparing to stand up when the voice called out again.

“Where are you going, Jon? Is everything alright?”

Jon recognized the voice this time, and everything in him froze as quickly and certainly as if his blood had instantaneously been replaced with ice water.

He wasn’t in bed with some stranger who he’d likely never see again after sneaking out of their place and doing the walk of shame back to his flat. He was in bed with _Martin fucking Blackwood_.

(Bad choice of words there. Shouldn’t think about fucking. Shouldn’t think about what the night he couldn’t remember must have been like, how radically things must have changed overnight for him to end up _here_. Shouldn’t think about how his desire to break out every cleaning supply he could find and use it on himself had diminished slightly upon realizing who, exactly, he was sharing a bed with. Shouldn’t think about how awkward the rest of their time in the Archives was inevitably going to be after this.

...too late.)

The words came out of Jon’s mouth before he’d entirely thought them through, in a desperate attempt to divert his train of thought, to break the silence that had fallen after he froze in place.

“What the _hell_?”

“J-jon?” Martin’s voice was softer now. “Are you- did you have a nightmare or...?” Martin let out a long breath before adding, “S-sorry, stupid question, I know...”

Jon considered this for a moment--not that he was waking up from a nightmare, although sorting through Gertrude’s mess in the Archives did seem like a waking nightmare sometimes, but that he was currently within one, that this was all a bad dream that would fade away any minute now. He wasn’t usually this lucid in dreams, true, but there was always a first time for everything, wasn’t there?

Jon pinched himself, and it hurt, which didn’t really come as a surprise, much as he would have liked to believe otherwise. What did come as a surprise was that some of the pain came not from the area pinched, but from the hand that did the pinching.

“It’s alright, Jon. I don’t know what you... what all this is about, but it’s going to be alright, I promise.”

Jon just let out a sharp, bitter laugh in response, because if Martin was seriously saying that all of this was “alright,” either Martin hadn’t realized the ramifications this was going to have yet, or...

Or somehow he’d orchestrated all of this.

Which didn’t seem like the Martin Jon knew, true, but what was the old Sherlock Holmes quote about ruling out the impossible and then believing the improbable that remained? Jon didn’t remember drinking at all that night, certainly not to the point of memory loss, but it was possible that Martin had slipped something in the tea he insisted on making Jon--improbable, yes, but _possible_. That or he’d somehow been coaxed into drinking so much that he’d forgotten the drinking itself, let alone the aftermath.

Jon shook his head again, partially in the rapidly-dwindling hopes of clearing it and making the world make sense again, partially as a response to what Martin had said, because no, it was _not_ alright, thank you very much.

“Jon, talk to me, will you?”

A cool hand brushed against Jon’s shoulder, and Jon flinched, instinctively retreating where Martin’s skin had touched his own.

“Don’t touch me!” Jon considered the relative merits of curling up into a ball (less surface area, body language clearly showing his displeasure) and standing up (more grounding, able to walk away from the scene of the crime) before settling on combining the two by hugging his knees as his feet remained firmly on the ground. “Don’t... just _don’t_.”

Jon wondered idly if this was the first time he’d ever brushed against Martin--he hadn’t expected the man to feel so cold to the touch. Jon felt his face heat up as he realized that he could in fact distinctly recall several other times in which everyday work in the Archives had led to Martin brushing against him, and no, he definitely hadn’t felt so cold before. Jon realized that his mental inventory of times Martin had touched him was clearly missing some rather important entries at the moment.

“Fine, fine, no touching. Is talking still on the table, at least?”

Jon considered it for a moment before answering. If this were some random stranger, perhaps he’d be content to slip out without discussing the matter further, but he’d have to talk to Martin about this one way or another, so might as well get it over with.

“...sure.”

“Here, let me turn the light on. If- if that’s alright. Let me know if it’s not.”

The soft sound of a lamp’s chain being pulled, and the room lit up with light. Jon wasn’t sure what he’d have expected Martin’s bedroom to look like, but this wasn’t quite it. The size of it perhaps he’d have guessed--it was on the cozy side, and that much at least seemed accurate, from what little Jon knew of Martin’s personal life. The decorations, such as they were, were a bit gaudy, a bit thrown-together, but perhaps that was just what Martin’s taste was like; it wasn’t as if they’d had much of a chance to discuss their respective tastes in interior design. Even the piles of clothes on the floor could be explained away, except that there were two distinct piles, one closer to Martin and one closer to Jon, and the one closer to Jon looked to be filled with clothes he himself would wear in a pinch...

Either Martin had been preparing for this, though whether the preparation came before it happened or while Jon was asleep he didn’t know, or... or the full picture was even stranger than what Jon had already surmised.

Jon didn’t beat around the bush.

“What happened last night?”

Martin blinked a few times and stifled a yawn, his face contorted in confusion, or else a convincing facade thereof. “Nothing that unusual. I beat you at gin rummy, we made some progress on that jigsaw puzzle, went to bed a bit on the early side... why?”

Nothing that unusual. _Nothing that unusual._

Jon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream.

(Some distant part of Jon’s brain noted that, in addition to the obvious, apparently Martin considered gin rummy and puzzles activities that counted as “nothing that unusual,” even when it was Jon of all people he was doing them with.)

Jon took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, and as he did he noticed that there was a white streak in Martin’s hair--thick, prominent, and definitely just the one streak, unless others were hiding on the back of Martin’s head where Jon couldn’t see them. Jon was no stranger from prematurely graying hair himself, far from it, but that pattern looked... _unnatural_.

Out of the millions of questions that were fighting in Jon’s mind, the one he ended up actually asking, with a shaky laugh sneaking into his voice, was, “What happened to your hair? Just a bad dye job, or...?”

Jon hadn’t noticed the weight of Martin’s gaze upon him until it was suddenly lifted, until Martin suddenly found the sheets (which were light and floral-patterned) the most interesting thing in the world and focused his gaze on them and them alone.

“You- you don’t remember, then?”

Jon blinked in confusion. Surely _he_ hadn’t played a part in whatever debacle had done that to Martin’s hair, had he? “Remember what?”

Martin let out a long breath before responding, one hand clutching those flowery sheets as if holding on for dear life. “Is- is _that_ what this is about? Some sort of, of memory thing?”

Jon’s first instinct was to argue, but-

But he was clearly missing some chunk of memory, at least, if as far as he could remember he’d gone from working in the Archives to apparently sleeping in Martin’s bed, with Martin having a thick white streak in his hair that definitely hadn’t been there before.

But the Archives were strange, Jon knew that, much as he liked to play the skeptic when at work there, and it wasn’t _impossible_ that something there had messed with his memories. Some sort of supernatural accident made more sense than Martin purposely making Jon forget a night out, really.

But when Jon thought about it, _really_ thought about it, he felt like he was missing something, though he didn’t know the details and trying to mentally investigate further just made his head hurt.

Jon didn’t answer Martin’s question in words, but his silence and decision to curl his legs back onto the bed while also closely examining those floral sheets (were those supposed to be lilies?) was something of an answer in and of itself.

“What do you remember, then? Do- do you remember me?” Martin sounded so concerned when he asked that last question, and Jon couldn’t help but think that he probably wouldn’t have nearly as much emotion apparent in his voice if the tables were turned. Jon wasn’t sure which was better given the circumstances, the open book of sentiment that was Martin Blackwood or the calm rationality he himself would have tried to provide.

Jon nodded numbly, though he couldn’t bring himself to look back up at Martin when he did so. “You’re Martin Blackwood. You, you work in the Archives with me--well, _under_ me, really; I’m the head archivist, and you’re one of my assistants. Elias assigned you to join me there.” Jon barely managed to keep himself from adding “for some reason” to that last sentence; he didn’t need to be cruel, even if Martin had proven to be the least capable of his assistants, had established that much practically the moment they met.

“That’s- that’s good.” Martin let out a soft sigh of relief. “That much you’ve got right, at least.”

“Doesn’t explain how the hell I ended up here, wherever here even _is_ -”

Jon saw movement out of the corner of his eye, looked up just enough to see that Martin was shaking his head gently. “One thing at a time. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was working on the Moira Kelly case in the Archives after everybody else had gone home.” Jon looked up a bit more, saw that Martin looked confused at the reference, so he explained himself, trying not to show his frustration in the meantime. (He had no trouble keeping track of which statement was which, so why should Martin struggle with the same thing?) “That’s the mother of disappeared Robert Kelly, the former skydiver--at least according to her statement, though then again it also claims the sky-”

“-Ate him?” Martin’s face was awfully pale now. “I- I know the case you’re talking about now, but... that’s the _last_ thing you remember?”

“Yes?” That sounded less sure than Jon wanted it to, so he brought his chin up, looked Martin straight in the eye when he repeated it, tried to sound more confident this time. “Yes, that’s the last thing I remember. Why?”

“Jon, that... that was two- two and a half years ago. At least that’s when I remember you working on the Kelly case, back in March of 2016, I think? But it’s October now. October 2018.”

Jon looked into Martin’s eyes, searching for some sign of insincerity, for out-of-place levity. Martin didn’t seem the type to pull pranks like this, but maybe Tim had talked him into it somehow... but no, all Jon saw in those eyes was genuine concern and confusion, not even a hint of laughter at Jon’s expense.

“...no it’s not.” Jon couldn’t even summon up the certainty to make his voice sound filled with conviction, despite the argument apparent in his words.

“It is, though, it... Christ.” Martin dragged one hand across his face. “Do you even know where we are?”

“Your bedroom?” Jon could feel his face heat up as he suddenly realized how much less sure of that conclusion he was now than he had been a few short minutes ago, and how awkward his guess might be if it were to be proven incorrect.

“What? No, it’s not, it’s... it’s Daisy’s safehouse... wait, d’you know who Daisy is?”

Jon shook his head silently.

“Shit. Right.” Martin stopped to rub his eyes before continuing speaking. “Well, Daisy’s... she works at the Institute, she, she’s a friend of ours...” Martin’s voice wavered a bit as he spoke, though whether that was due to uncertainty or emotion Jon couldn’t say. “The Institute’s not safe for us at the moment, so we... borrowed this place from her, to stay until it’s safe to come back.”

“Why isn’t the Institute safe?” Jon asked the question without hesitation, though he could easily have asked a dozen others in its place: _How did Daisy end up close enough to lend us a place to stay when I don’t even know who she is? When will it be safe to go back? Where, exactly, is this safehouse I’ve apparently woken up in? Are we the only ones in it, or just the only ones currently in this bedroom? How does some safety issue at the Institute connect to us sleeping in the same bed?_

“It’s...” Martin grabbed the sheets in a fist again. “It’s a long story.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jon attempted to emulate Martin’s gesture with his own hand, but when he went to gather the sheets in a fist he found that the gesture hurt for some reason, that he didn’t have quite the strength in his hand that he expected, that the feeling of the blanket against his hand was coarse and strange. Jon abandoned the attempt and instead looked more closely at his hand, saw that it was covered in scars that he definitely didn’t remember being there.

“Is this long story at all connected to whatever did this to my hand, then?” Jon held up the hand in question, brought it closer to the light and to Martin in turn, though if he was telling the truth about all this, he has to know what it looks like already...

Martin scrunched up his nose a little. “I mean, not really? Not unless you start getting into how everything’s connected in the grand scheme of things--I’m sure you could draw some lines between the two if you really tried--but no, that was a different, er, incident, that happened a little over a year ago.”

“What the hell did I _do_ , then, stick my hand in the middle of a burning fireplace?”

“Sort of, actually, yeah.”

“ _Sort of_?”

Jon pressed his good hand, the one that wasn’t scarred--or wasn’t _as_ scarred, anyway, as closer examination revealed that it too was covered in small scars, though they didn’t hurt or impair his movement in the same way--against his temple.

“Can you stop- stop dancing around things and actually give me some straight answers?”

Martin let out a long, deep breath before responding.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. Should’ve known, really. I just don’t... don’t know where to _start_...” The last word was punctuated by Martin covering his mouth as he let out an impressive yawn.

Jon wanted answers, wanted to know what was going on, wanted to know how he had gone from there to here, and the desire for knowledge burned within him, but...

But Martin’s eyelids kept fluttering downwards, and his own felt heavy as well, and Jon soon matched Martin’s yawn with one of his own that was almost as long, and he could feel exhaustion wearing away at his thoughts...

“Perhaps we should start by getting some more sleep. You can think on your explanation, give it to me straight in the morning.” Jon paused, hesitated, before adding, “Does this, this safehouse have another bed, or...?”

Martin shook his head. “No, just the one, does...” His voice trailed off as he looked over Jon’s face, seemed to connect the dots. “Oh, right. I can take the couch if, if you’d prefer.”

“ _I_ can take the couch, I’ve slept worse places before-”

Martin held a hand up, a hint of shaky laughter sneaking into his voice as he spoke up. “You’ve lost _years of memories_ , Jon. I think you deserve to take the bed for the night. I imagine spending one night on the couch is nothing compared to that.”

Jon considered this for a moment before nodding. “Alright then. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin’s face turned slightly pink as he turned away. “The least I can do, really.”

Martin turned the lamp off again before leaving the room, apparently familiar enough with the place to navigate without needing the light’s aid.

And then Jon was left alone with his thoughts. His thoughts that kept circling back to the same few questions. _What was going on? How had he lost his memory? What had he missed in those two and a half years he couldn’t remember? Was it going to happen again? Was there a way to get those memories back?_

The more he thought about it, the more his head ached, but he couldn’t very well _not_ think about it, couldn’t just ignore the fact that he’d been thrown into an unfamiliar environment with no warning, couldn’t just accept that his mind had been manipulated somehow, that he’d lost two and a half years of memories overnight, seemingly with no warning or clear reason...

Sleep didn’t come easily to Jon that night.


	2. Chapter 2

Jon woke up slowly, his mind still filled with all the details of the dream--the nightmare--he’d just had. One supernatural horror unfolded after another, and all Jon could do was stand there and watch, unable to intervene as victim after victim went through the most traumatic moment of their lives...

It would have been easy to write off as just an odd nightmare and nothing more, except that one of the horrors he’d witnessed had been the events outlined in Naomi Herne’s statement. He hadn’t even remembered that clearly what she looked like, not consciously, but it was definitely her there, definitely her stuck in that calm, lonely graveyard that she had described so vividly to him before.

Another question to add to his long list of them, perhaps.

Part of Jon expected to wake up somewhere more familiar, in the Archives or in his own bed, to find out that what he’d gone through with Martin in the middle of the night had itself just been a strange dream, but no, he was still in that unfamiliar bed with its scratchy blanket on top of him.

The bed seemed awfully big now that he took it in properly, without Martin taking up space on it. Too big for one person, it seemed. Or too big for _him_ , at least, small and skinny as he was--and a quick glance at his arms suggested that if anything, he’d only grown skinnier in the time that had passed without him knowing it.

It wasn’t as dark in the room now as it had been, as light was seeping in from a nearby window, and Jon, having determined that he’d gotten as much rest as he was likely to get any time soon, stood up and approached the window with a few shaky steps.

Before he opened the blinds, Jon half-expected the view beyond to be the skyscrapers and asphalt of London, but instead there was a wide open field of grass reaching out to the horizon, with little to break it up in the space between. A few trees, a handful of paths (roads, if one were feeling generous, but they weren’t nearly as neatly established as most roads Jon had encountered before) crisscrossing the area. Two cows in the distance, or what Jon assumed were cows at least, though they were little more than indistinct blobs from this far away.

Daisy’s safehouse, apparently, was in the middle of bloody _nowhere_.

Which made sense, really, for a safehouse, Jon supposed. His mental picture of the situation just hadn’t shifted enough for him to expect it, to expect that he really had gone from London to God-knows-where seemingly overnight. But as Jon looked out at that field, the reality of the situation sank in a bit more.

Whatever the truth of all this was, it wasn’t something he could get through with just a good night’s sleep.

Jon stared out the window for a long minute before shaking his head and stumbling into the bathroom. His desire to cleanse himself however possible had faded away by now, but still, he knew neglecting basic hygiene would only lead to further problems.

Which was all well and good until he reached the sink and saw that there were two toothbrushes there, one purple and one green, and he had no idea which was his.

Presumably Jon could call out to Martin--he hadn’t seen him since waking up for a second time, but he was likely still in the safehouse, perhaps still sleeping on the couch that Jon had yet to encounter--and ask for clarification, but... well, of all the questions Jon wanted to ask Martin that morning, “which toothbrush is the one I’ve been using lately” was pretty far down on the list and seemed more likely to kill further conversation than to encourage it.

So that would have to wait.

A quick use of the toilet, a thorough washing of his hands with hand soap that apparently contained the scent of “acorn spice,” and Jon found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection within it.

His hair was significantly longer than he remembered, which hadn’t entirely escaped his notice up until that point, as a few strands had fallen into his field of vision periodically--running one hand through it, it seemed like there were a handful of patches that were slightly shorter than the rest, but even those weren’t as short as he’d been keeping his hair cut recently from what he remembered. Much of his hair was covered in gray streaks, too, which wasn’t entirely new, but his premature graying had clearly only gotten worse as the years went by. (Also, his hair didn’t feel especially greasy or oily, which was probably a good sign, certainly better than the alternative.)

What _had_ escaped Jon’s notice up until that point were all the scars he’d managed to accumulate that weren’t on his hands.

The small scars he’d noticed the night before were apparently not just on his hands and arms, but dotted his entire body. His throat had a raised pink line on it that looked disturbingly like someone had tried to slit it and nearly succeeded. The shirt he was wearing, which was over-sized and plaid, didn’t quite cover another scar on his shoulder, another line that was more jagged than the one on his throat.

Good lord, what had the last two and a half years of his life _been_ like?

Well. Only one way to find out, Jon supposed, and that wasn’t by standing there and wondering about it. Though he did spare a moment to study each scar carefully, his mind filling with half-baked speculations about what might have caused each one, before walking away, leaving the bathroom and the bedroom both behind.

Martin was not, in fact, still sleeping on the couch, as Jon quickly discovered upon entering the next room, a kitchen and dining room combination in which Martin was busy cooking away. The smells of a few different foods hit him at once, far overpowering the faint scent of acorn spice soap lingering on Jon’s hands and melding together into something that just smelled like... _breakfast_. A real, proper breakfast, specifically, the likes of which Jon hadn’t had in years, not a cereal bar or an over-sized cup of tea that he grabbed on his way to work.

Jon took a few steps further into the room, and Martin looked up at Jon, and Jon looked back at Martin, and... God, Martin’s face just lit up when he saw Jon, in a way that made him wonder what he possibly could have done to deserve such clear affection. Surely the way he’d treated Martin before couldn’t have endeared him to Martin much...

“Have you figured out how you’re going to start explaining all this yet?”

Jon tried to keep his tone light, despite everything, but Martin’s face still fell at the sound of his words. The care in his expression wasn’t gone, exactly, but it was mixed with something else now--concern, guilt, anxiety, sorrow? Jon had never been the best at reading faces, and now he felt that skill lacking more than ever.

“Not exactly, but I’ve at least figured out a bunch of reasons behind it being so hard to do in the first place.” Martin’s tone sounded fairly light as well, but Jon suspected any levity to be found there was as forced as it had been in his own voice.

“Please do elaborate.”

“I mean, the main one’s that you won’t believe any of it.” Martin paused his speech momentarily to flip something over with a spatula, and as he continued his gaze remained focused on what he was preparing rather than turning back towards Jon. “It was hard enough to believe when it all happened, really, and that was it coming in bits and pieces, not just explaining years of weirdness in one fell swoop. Plus you always were such a skeptic...”

“About that. If you’re saying all this relates back to the supernatural...”

“Yes?” Martin glanced back at Jon for a moment before turning back to his food preparation.

Jon stumbled over to the table, which was already set for two with still-steaming mugs of tea, and took a seat in the nearest chair. (Was he imagining that pain in his leg, or was there another scar there, just waiting to be found?)

“I’m willing to hear you out. I, I do believe in the supernatural, actually. Much as I try to pretend otherwise.”

“Ah, alright, good.” Martin paused for a brief moment. “That makes sense, actually, you did tell me something like that before.”

Jon’s pulse quickened as half-repressed memories of supernatural childhood trauma came flooding back. He didn’t remember telling _anyone_ about that particular story. Had Martin somehow ended up becoming the exception to that rule, or was he alluding to something less specific?

“What exactly did I tell you before?”

“Just, uh, that you feel like you’re being watched when you read the statements, and somehow it felt safer to deny them all. Though it wasn’t safer, in the end, it _really_ wasn’t...” Martin let out a strangely somber laugh and a shake of the head before adding, “The being watched bit makes more sense now too, come to think of it.”

Sounded like whatever he’d confessed when he couldn’t remember it wasn’t that one particular story, so Jon turned his mind elsewhere. It was true, he did feel watched in the Archives, especially when reading statements, but he didn’t have a clue why that might be... but it sounded like Martin _did_.

“How so?”

“Well that, uh, gets into some of the big picture stuff, which, I’d been hoping we could talk face to face for that bit, but these pancakes just _will not cooperate_ -” Martin flipped something again, presumably one of the erstwhile pancakes in question, putting more force into the motion than it truly required and making a little grunt of annoyance as he did so. It was weirdly... _cute_ , though Jon hadn’t thought to apply that particular word to Martin before. “Basically the supernatural’s divided into different fear entity... things... and the Institute’s connected to one that involves being watched, or, or just feeling like you’re being watched. So, there’s that.”

There was a lot to process there, and Jon was still silently processing it all, trying to make sure he grasped all the unspoken implications, trying to decide what part of it he wanted clarification on first, when Martin spoke up again.

“Alright, that should do it. Breakfast is ready.”

Jon stood up, noting as he did that yes that definitely _was_ some pain in his leg that hadn’t been there before, but before he could get much farther, Martin brought two plates filled with food to the table and set them down before taking a seat himself.

Pancakes, eggs, bacon... definitely a quality breakfast there, and it all looked well-prepared to boot, except-

“I don’t actually eat-”

“Pork, I know. It’s the veggie stuff. Your favorite brand of the ones they’ve got at the local market, too.”

Jon let out a soft sigh at Martin’s words, which were borne out by a closer inspection of the bacon in question. He took a tentative bite--it was good, and he hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was there--before speaking up again.

“So you’re saying the Institute itself is supernatural?”

“Cutting right to the chase, huh?” Martin laughed a little, though Jon didn’t see what was so funny about it. “As I understand it, it got founded because Jonah Magnus himself--which, er, remind me to come back to him--wanted to gather knowledge for the fear he’s connected to, the Eye. So the Institute’s not just studying the supernatural, it _is_ supernatural. And, er, so are you, now.”

Jon thought he understood that last sentence. Jon didn’t like what he thought he understood there. (The phrase _Mister Spider wants more_ ran through his mind unbidden.) Jon frantically hoped that he had somehow misunderstood.

“ _I’m_ supernatural.”

“Yeah.” Martin laughed again. Jon still didn’t see the humor in it. “But you still have to eat normal people food, so I’d advise doing so before the food goes cold rather than after.”

Jon looked down at his plate, which was still entirely full save for that one small bite of vegetarian bacon. Much as he hated to admit it, Martin had a point about that one.

“Fine, but you’d better keep explaining things while I’m eating.”

“I’ll take that deal.”

Jon nodded and started cutting up his pancakes as Martin began to talk.

“You’re, uh, so, since you’re the Archivist- the, the head Archivist of the Institute, you’re tied to that same fear thing I mentioned before, the Eye. And because of that you’ve got... powers?”

Jon’s mouth was full of pancake now, but he did his best to show his incredulity regardless, through expression rather than words.

Evidently the attempt worked, because Martin held his hands up like he’d been caught in a lie. “Not- not superpowers! Well, kind of superpowers, but not really the same... er... You can, can make people answer your questions, tell you the truth. Even when you don’t mean to sometimes, I think? And make people give statements, sometimes, though that’s, that’s not really a _good_ thing, especially with the whole nightmares thing that one woman mentioned...”

 _Nightmares_. Like the one he’d had that night, with Naomi Herne?

Jon’s mouth was still full of pancake, so he couldn’t actually ask that question, but he tilted his head to one side and did his best to look confused to get his point across.

(Had Martin intended him to have his mouth full at every moment, prevent him from asking questions as they came to mind? Maybe, maybe not. If so, if he was telling the truth about this whole “powers” thing, Jon couldn’t entirely blame him--can’t force someone to answer a question that’s never outright stated, after all. Still, it was certainly inconvenient.)

“The nightmares thing? Oh, this, this one woman came in and said you’d made her tell you her story--like, not even in the Institute, she was just in a cafe somewhere and you came by and made her give a statement whether she wanted to or not. And then after that she kept having dreams about the thing she’d given the statement on, and you were in them, _watching_ her. Hardly think that’s a coincidence there.”

Oh. That was... that made a disturbing amount of sense, actually. He was in their nightmares, they were in his.

Jon swallowed his food and spoke up. “I’m not the only Institute employee here. What about you? Do _you_ have any ‘powers’?”

Jon hadn’t expected the question to be a big deal, really; it was a simple yes or no question, and given how Martin had mentioned that it was specifically the head archivist position that connected Jon to the supernatural, he figured it was probably a no, but better to clarify than assume incorrectly.

Instead of a quick yes or no answer, however, Martin’s only reply was averting his gaze and turning distressingly pale.

Jon pointed his fork in Martin’s general direction as he said, “Going out on a limb here and taking it that’s a yes, then.”

“You’re... you’re not wrong.” Martin’s laugh was almost as much a sigh this time. “But it’s not because of the Institute, not, not directly. It’s not even the same fear thing connected, it’s another one, called the Lonely. I’d... rather not get into the details just yet, if you don’t mind, but you asked about my hair before?” Martin ran one hand along the white streak in his hair. “That’s what did that.”

Jon did mind a bit, not having all the information, not knowing what kind of powers the one other person he’d seen since all this started had at his disposal, not knowing what he’d gone through to get them or why he was so hesitant to explain them. (A small voice in the back of his head said that maybe that curiosity there wasn’t all natural, maybe that burning desire to know every last thing about his current situation was as much “the Eye” as it was just him.) But Jon supposed that Martin deserved some modicum of privacy, at least.

And Martin did say “just yet,” which implied that the story would come out, just not right this minute. It didn’t make Jon any less impatient or curious, but it was good to know it was coming just the same.

“How many of these fear things are there?” And, because Jon couldn’t help himself, “And does one of them have to do with spiders?”

“Fourteen or fifteen, depends who’s counting, and yeah, that’d be the Web, they’ve got spiders and spiderwebs, and also controlling people, manipulation, stuff like that. Haven’t had a ton of statements from them, but there were... enough.”

And then Jon saw in Martin’s eyes a look that was likely similar to that in Jon’s own, wide-eyed and curious and trying to decide exactly what to ask and how. Jon’s suspicion that he hadn’t, in fact, told Martin the Mister Spider story seemed confirmed now, because if he was reading that expression right, Martin didn’t know why Jon would ask about spiders specifically.

If the situation were flipped, if it were Martin alluding to something out there like that without elaborating, Jon would have asked about it in a heartbeat. Jon would have wanted to know, had already shown that by all the questions he’d asked thus far that morning.

But Martin wasn’t Jon, and Martin just shook his head and said, “Suppose that means I’ll keep dealing with any spider that dares show its face in here, then?”

When Martin laughed this time, Jon was a little tempted to join in. (He didn’t, but he considered it, at least. That had to be something.)

“ _Please_.”

“Got it. Not a problem; I always liked spiders anyhow, I can handle them just fine.”

Jon wrinkled his nose a bit at that, remembering how Martin had always tried to stop Jon from squishing any spiders that ended up in the Archives. Jon had assumed it was just because Martin had a big enough heart that he’d do the same for any living thing, be it spiders or mosquitoes or worms, but to hear that Martin actually _liked_ spiders specifically... well. Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again, and they could just quietly agree to disagree on the subject.

“Oh, come off it, they’re not _that_ bad.”

Jon took a deep breath to argue, then decided against it. “Well. Interesting as all this is. None of this explains why we’re here. Where even is here, anyway?”

“Scotland!”

Jon pressed one hand to his temple. He had figured they weren’t terribly close to London, but that was still... a bit further than he’d anticipated.

“The Highlands, specifically. There’s a little village in walking distance but I’ve got a mental block about its name, usually you’re the one who reminds me about that. I just know it sounds quaint, almost like something out of a storybook?”

“...so how, exactly, did we end up in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands, then?”

“That... well, there’s a lot of parts to that, dunno how good all my explaining will be...”

“Please don’t tell me how difficult it is for you to explain everything I’ve forgotten and think that that gets you out of actually explaining it all.” Jon snapped at Martin before he’d even thought the words through, and it came out rough and harsh and he could see surprise and hurt in Martin’s face, but Jon didn’t regret it, not exactly. If Martin thought _he_ was having a hard time of it right about now... well, he certainly wasn’t the only one, at the very least.

“Right, of course, you’re right, s-sorry, just...” Martin took a deep breath, paused, then pointed his fork at Jon. “I’ll talk. You eat.”

Jon considered this for a moment before nodding and taking an overly-large bite of pancake to show his approval.

Martin nodded back, a hint of a smile appearing on his face before he began to speak.


	3. Chapter 3

Martin took a deep breath and released it slowly before speaking again.

“So.” Martin tapped his fork against his plate, which made a noise that got on Jon’s nerves a bit, but he’d just taken a big bite of his pancake to show his following through on his part of their makeshift deal so he couldn’t exactly complain about it. “I guess I’ll start from here, and from what brought us here, and sort of, er, work backwards? I mean, I imagine you’ve got enough questions about what’s going on now without me bringing up a load of other weird things for you to wonder about.”

Jon nodded silently. Martin certainly wasn’t wrong about that bit; Jon had plenty of questions waiting to be asked already.

“Daisy didn’t actually give us the key to this place; I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any. There were hunters at the Institute when we left, and she was busy, er, fighting them off, so we didn’t get to say goodbye or anything--though I don’t know if I would have, I never really knew Daisy that well. But Basira--she works for the Institute now too, but before all that she and Daisy were cops together, they’re, they’re close--she was able to give us the keys, said she thought Daisy would approve.”

There was a lot to process there, unsurprisingly. Now there were two Institute employees Martin had brought up that Jon didn’t know rather than just one; the use of “hunters” seemed a bit odd, made Jon wonder what they were hunting for, whether Hunt was a fear to be capitalized like Eye and Web; all sorts of interpersonal relationship stuff could be teased out there, if one had a mind to do so, which Jon didn’t especially at the moment.

What was at the front of Jon’s mind, though, was that evidently there had been some danger at the Institute, whether because of these “hunters” (”Hunters”?) or for some other reason, and of the three other people working there that Jon cared about, the only one whose safety was assured was the one sitting in front of him.

(Elias didn’t count. Jon tolerated Elias well enough, and he was glad the man had trusted him with an opportunity by promoting him to Head Archivist even if he felt like he was just flailing around playing pretend half the time, but he didn’t _care_ about Elias, not like he did about the rest of his crew.)

Jon swallowed the last of his current bite of food before Martin could start up again. “What about Tim and Sasha?”

Martin furrowed his brow, confusion evident on his face--the word “adorable” sprung to Jon’s mind, unbidden--so Jon elaborated further.

“You haven’t mentioned what happened to Tim and Sasha during all of this. Are they alright?”

And then Jon watched Martin’s face slowly fall, could practically see the gears turning as Martin tried to figure out a tactful response, and he wasn’t the best at reading facial expressions but figuring out this one wasn’t exactly rocket science.

“Were they together in the end, at least?”

Martin shook his head, loose curls flying everywhere as he did so, one of them settling in between his eyes in a place that didn’t look like it’d be comfortable or even easy to ignore, but Martin made no attempt to brush it away. “Sorry?”

“I just... they were always so close to each other. If they’re... gone... I just hope they were side by side when their time came.”

“Oh.” Martin bit his lip for a moment. “No, uh, they- it wasn’t just now, during that attack on the Institute--we lost Tim a little over a year ago, now, and Sasha... was about a year before that.”

Jon let out a long breath as he felt his insides turn cold. Two of his closest companions were dead and gone, and he didn’t even remember it happening.

“Actually, this- this may sound weird, but can you... describe Sasha for me?”

Jon let out a huff. “You work more closely with her than I do.”

“Humor me, please?”

Martin’s request did sound weird, but... but not as weird as Jon would have expected, when he thought about it. It was a piece of this massive puzzle, that much was clear, and Jon had a feeling that somewhere, just out of his reach, was the rest of it, and he’d be able to put all the pieces together eventually.

“She’s... short. Shorter than me. Blonde hair, usually in a bob, sometimes with a headband. Has a thing for costume jewelry...”

Martin let out a soft sigh and shook his head again, though that one strand of curly hair remained in place between his eyes. (Some distant part of Jon wanted to reach out and brush it away; the more rational part of Jon didn’t dare, wouldn’t even mention the loose curl unless it came up naturally.) “Yeah, that’s, that’s about what I figured... still, it was worth a shot.”

“What was worth a shot?”

Martin bit down on his bottom lip again, hard, enough that Jon wondered if it would leave a mark.

“Why did you ask about Sasha? Were you hoping I’d say something different?”

“I... yes, I did, it’s just... Jon, _eat_.”

Jon stared down at his half-full plate, huffing a little before going along with Martin’s request and having another bite.

“Okay, so, with Sasha... when she died-” And Martin paused for a brief moment there, looking away from Jon, and his voice sounded a little shakier when he started up again. “She was, was replaced by the thing that killed her. It took her place and changed all of our memories so we thought she was always like that, that nothing was wrong. I thought maybe since you forgot all that, your memories might still be of the real Sasha, but... no, that’s the one I remember too, and that’s not her. That’s the thing that took her place.”

“It changed our memories, and we couldn’t even tell.” Jon’s voice was calm, but his mind was anything but as he contemplated the implications of that statement.

“Yeah, we didn’t even know she was dead until- until the thing that replaced her went after you. I still don’t know what she actually looked like. I think Melanie remembered the real Sasha, but we never really got a chance to sit down and talk about it...”

A third name Jon didn’t recognize there--good Lord, how much turnover did Institute staff _have_ these days?--but that wasn’t what caught Jon’s attention most.

“So there’s no way to know if our memories are real or just, just changed or made up by supernatural beings messing with us?”

“Well, apparently tape recorders are just old enough that they don’t change, something about the difference between analog and digital? Think that’s why the statements record fine on them, too. The, the real ones, I mean.”

Jon let out a long sight. “And I don’t suppose you’ve got tape recording of all or... _any_ of the things you’ve been talking about?”

“No, Jon, I wasn’t exactly able to bring the whole Archives with us when we went on the run, sorry.”

The phrase “on the run” caught Jon attention briefly--that sounded like it was more than two hunters they had to worry about, like they were hiding from the authorities on top of all that--but again, Jon’s thoughts drifted elsewhere.

“So there’s no proof. No proof of any of this, even the parts I think I remember. We can’t prove that you’re who you say you are-”

Jon gestured with his butter knife at Martin, and Martin threw his hands up in mock surrender in response. “H-hang on now-”

“Or, or even that _I’m_ who I think I am. For all I know I’m not even Jonathan Sims, for all I know my, my whole _life_ never happened and I just had fake memories that it did implanted because that’s what some supernatural creature wanted-”

Jon’s rambling only trailed off when he noticed that Martin was quietly giggling to himself.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, really, I- sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing, I know this is serious-”

“It is, yes.”

“It’s just- I don’t think this is the first time you’ve had this particular existential crisis before? I, uh, I think the way you put it in one of your tapes was ‘How do you know that you’re the same person who went to sleep?’“

Martin’s impression of Jon’s voice was more accurate than Jon would have expected, though he wasn’t going to actually comment as much out loud.

“Something I said on a tape that I don’t have, that I don’t remember ever making... forgive me if I’m not terribly reassured.”

“A-alright, fair enough. Maybe just- just think of it this way. How much does all of this _actually_ change?”

Jon wrinkled his brow. “I don’t think I follow.”

“Look, I know you know your philosophy well enough. Losing memories of a chunk of your life, finding out that the supernatural can mess with your mind... it’s horrible, I know, believe me, but it doesn’t really open up any new possibilities about the state of the world. It was always possible that- that the world was just some elaborate simulation, or that life just started five seconds ago and all your memories before then are fake, or that everybody besides you is just an object pretending to be a person, or whatever. If you didn’t buy into that kind of thing before, why does this change all that?”

That... was actually a good point, now that Martin brought it up, and Jon thought about it for a moment in silence.

“Please don’t tell me you _do_ buy into that kind of thing regardless-”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Good.”

“So, will you at least try to take the world at face value for a bit unless you’ve got an actual _reason_ to do otherwise?”

“Except for Sasha, of course.”

“Yeah, except for Sasha, I suppose, though I don’t know that she’d come up that much anyway, it’s...” Martin let out a soft sigh. “It’s been a while.”

“...fine. Alright. Until I’ve got a reason to do otherwise, I’ll...” Jon massaged his temple with one hand. “Try to trust my own mind, at least.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” The smile on Martin’s face looked a bit thin, a bit forced, but it was better than nothing, Jon supposed.

“So if that’s what happened to Sasha, what about Tim? Please don’t tell me I’m remembering _him_ wrong, too...”

“No, it wasn’t that. The, the not-Sasha thing went missing around when you went on the run for murder, only popped up again just before we came here.”

“So what happened to Tim, then?”

“Oh, he, uh, blew up a circus to stop it from ending the world.”

Taking a sip of tea while waiting for Martin to respond had definitely been a mistake. Jon gulped his mouthful of tea down fast, the heat making his throat ache, but at least he could respond, and better drinking too fast than choking on the stuff.

“What, and the circus killed him for doing it?”

“No, he... he was inside it when he blew it up.”

Jon didn’t know what to say to that, so he just took another bite of now-lukewarm pancake and let Martin keep speaking.

“You were too, actually. It’s a- it’s complicated, I think I get how you came out the other side now, but I’m surprised you don’t have more scars from that at least...”

“Speaking of which. Where _did_ all these scars come from?”

“Well. Er.” Martin set his silverware aside and scooted his chair closer in to Jon. “A bunch of places, really, but I can go over them one by one...”

First, Martin gestured broadly across Jon’s whole body. “The little- the worm scars. That’s what those are, all over. That’s... Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute--you _do_ know that name, at least?”

“I’m familiar with the files on her, yes.”

“I _wish_ all I knew about her was from those files...” Martin let out a soft but surprisingly sharp laugh before continuing. “So, the worms got to you- you and Tim both, actually. We got rid of them, but not before they dug in enough to leave those scars on the two of you.”

Jon still didn’t remember the incident in question, but even that vague description of it was enough to make him shudder a bit. Worms had _dug_ into his _skin_. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to hear, but it... it hadn’t been that, certainly. “What about you? Obviously you didn’t get the same scars...”

“No, I, I got lost in the tunnels when they attacked-”

“The tunnels?”

“Yeah, there’s a whole secret maze of tunnels under the Institute, turns out. That’s where, uh, I found Gertrude’s body. And Michael. And you found Leitner in there, I think? And the, the Panopticon is down there too.”

...there were entirely too many things going on in that statement for Jon to be able to process them all at once. His predecessor’s body, _another_ name he didn’t recognize, a name he knew all too well, and something he knew best as a philosophical concept but apparently was in fact a physical thing somewhere under the Institute?

Jon took a deep breath and slowly let it out before speaking again.

“Alright, that’s one scar then. The hand--you said I ‘sort of’ stuck it in a fireplace?”

“Well it’s, it’s not an _entirely_ accurate description, but...” Martin’s arm darted out, hovering over the scarred hand in question before slowly falling back to his side; Jon’s heartbeat raced as he watched Martin’s arm approach his, and he wasn’t sure if it was out of fear or anxiety or something else. “I wasn’t there for this one but you apparently, uh, shook hands with someone in with the Lightless Flame, someone who’s basically made of molten wax. Jude Perry, is the name.”

The name meant nothing to Jon, but he vaguely remembered reading something about the Lightless Flame before, and he wrinkled his brow in confusion. “Why would I do _that_?”

Martin’s laugh was a bit fuller this time, less bitter and more genuine. “That is an _excellent_ question."

“...so you don’t know, then.”

“No, but- it’s hard to see, but there’s actually another scar on that same hand? At the time you told us some ridiculous story about cutting yourself on a bread knife, but I heard the truth later. That, that Michael I mentioned, he stabbed you. Didn’t like that you tried to stop him from taking Helen, I think.”

“This being the same Michael that you found in the tunnels.” Jon had half-assumed this Michael was one of the apparently ever-changing archival staff in the Institute that he didn’t remember, but evidently that assumption was a faulty one.

“Yeah, but he’s not just in the tunnels, that time he was in your office--he could go anywhere, just pop out of a yellow door. Still can, sort of, but it’s not Michael now, it’s Helen.”

“The same Helen I tried to stop this Michael from taking?”

“Yeah... well, yes and no. Helen’s not exactly the same as she was...”

Jon sighed. “Alright. Moving on, then. Shoulder scar?” Jon tugged his oversized shirt down a bit, made it so the scar would poke out a bit more.

“Oh that, uh, that was Melanie’s doing-”

“The, the Melanie who remembered the real Sasha?”

“Yeah, that’s the one!”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. Either he really needed to stop assuming every name Martin dropped was an Institute employee, or Institute employees seemed to have a nasty habit of injuring him badly enough to give him scars. Or both. With his luck, probably both.

“So what exactly did Melanie do?”

“She stabbed you with, with a scalpel? See, you and Basira were doing surgery on her-”

“I thought you said Basira used to be a cop.” Jon considered adding _and not a doctor_ out loud, but he figured the implication was clear enough.

“Yeah, that’s right. Why?”

“...so, I was doing surgery on Melanie, with a former cop as my assistant-”

“Yeah, to get a ghost bullet out of her leg. But she woke up and freaked out and stabbed you with a nearby scalpel. Honestly, I don’t entirely blame her for that bit, though she definitely took it too far.”

If Martin was telling the truth, he’d been doing amateur surgery, with a fellow non-surgeon as his only assistant, to retrieve a “ghost bullet,” whatever _that_ was... and the patient had woken up mid-surgery and stabbed him?

He’d known these scars would have stories of some kind behind them, but _that_... God, what could he even say to that?

Well. Only one scar that he knew of left. Might as well wrap things up, see if that left him with any more pieces with which to put together this very strange puzzle.

“So that just leaves the scar on my throat, then, I believe.”

“Er. Right.” Martin looked down at his plate of food; a quick glance revealed that he’d actually eaten less than Jon had at this point, though Jon certainly wasn’t going to nag him about it. “About that.”

“Yes?”

“Just, uh, don’t take this the wrong way...”

“Did you stab me, too?”

“What? No!” Martin’s face flushed at the accusation. “Jesus, Jon, no, I would _never_...”

“Then who... or what... did?”

“...Daisy did. I don’t know all the details, I don’t think I _want_ to, but I know she brought you somewhere to kill you, and while she obviously didn’t do _that_ , she got far enough to leave that on your neck.”

“...the Daisy whose house we’re staying in.”

“This is one of her safehouses, yeah. I think Basira said she’s got a few of them?”

“And you’re sure we’re safe here.” Half statement, half question.

“...I really _hope_ we’re safe here. Can’t honestly say I’m _sure_ about that, though...”

Jon dropped his silverware, letting it clatter against the plate and the table as he covered his head in his hands.

“Wonderful. Just... just wonderful.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


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